Kid Icarus

Because it's the only question that's being put forward is whether we should keep Howe, and that's at best. In other cases it's an assertion that we should. In both cases the amount of times he's blamed for things that are objectively not his fault (nigh on always from the summer) is ridiculous. Someone's just claimed that no one is doing that, then 2 posts later someone was blaming him for us not selling Isak soon enough. It's day after day at this point.

Stats might only tell part of the story, but the stuff you see with your eyes also only tell part of the story and are highly subjective. Yet the only conclusion that's reached is: can only be the manager's fault/we have to blame the manager.

This is exactly what I mean, everyone has memory-holed the summer. He had nothing to do with keeping Isak or not at all, his role in that was finding a replacement and batting off questions in the press, saying countless times that it was being dealt with at ownership level.

Some of the blame would be a marked difference from the current situation where he's getting all of it through him being the only person taking the flack. This thread and the PIF thread are night and day, yet PIF are far, far more to blame for the shitshow of last summer.

Blaming Howe for last summer is by definition ignoring the wider context.

Under Keegan we spent more than pretty much every team in the league at a time when there was no closed shop at the top. Only Man United already had an established squad so them starting the 100m race at the 40m mark wasn't anything like the existing advantages the 'big 6' have now in terms of squad, revenue, spending power. The likes of us, Liverpool, Blackburn, Villa could all compete with Man United. Robson's spend (gross and net and wages) was anything from 4th to 6th, which matched our positions. We also already had very good players so didn't need an overhaul (Given, Speed, Dyer, Solano, Shearer) Meanwhile our spend under Howe is from a similar position to Robson but with a worse squad, no assets to counter our spend, spending that was needed to bridge the gap and still pales in comparison to the top teams, and the 8th highest wage bill. He's also achieved more than SBR, and you could make a case for Keegan, but I'd say Howe has achieved more in context.

It's a daily occurrence that Howe is specifically blamed for the summer and by a different poster each time.

Absolutely staggering how many people either don't know what happened in the summer, can't remember, or seem to think that the summer setup was by his design or even something he wanted. It's just as well he doesn't read any social media stuff because if he knew how many of our fanbase blame him for the summer after he stepped up to bail PIF out of their own incompetence he'd probably have walked a while back.

Did he even have a honeymoon period?

FWIW I think you can point at a few for tgat second goal, it's what makes the entire thing so tragic.

Standard floated ball to the back post that he's rooted to his line for. There's definitely an argument that Pope goes for it and fucks up, but I cannot stand 'keepers that stay on their line like Ramsdale does, it's probably the number one thing I need to see in a 'keeper to think they're good.

Never hides but he has whatever the opposite of the midas touch is at the moment and has for a while.

As I've just said to nufc123, I was responding to duo who said he was Eddie's number 1 target. Never denied he wasn't high on the list, more that there were plenty of players we went for before him.

I was responding to duo's post saying he was Eddie's number 1 target and he wasn't, not even in the summer gone. 'Close to the top of the list' is another matter, but I wasn't responding to that.

Hall wasn't great today like, their goal came down that side, they should have scored another, and Rayan had the beating of him all first half. Tino faired better and Burn only came on because Tino was injured. Attacking-wise there were other subs that should have come though, Barnes was really poor. Elanga too, albeit Murphy was no better. Would like to see Osula RW with Woltemade CF at some point, not necessarily because they're a good pairing, but just because the alternatives are yielding no rewards.

Yeah. Gordon was our original RW choice, who then ended up playing LW, we've bid for Olise, were in for Mbeumo, owned and were forced to sell Minteh. We also bid for Maddison and were heavily linked with Szoboszlai for that inverted RW playmaker role. Like I say, the transfer on its own is worth scrutinising but he wasn't Howe’s first choice by any means.

The transfer is worthy of criticism but he wasn't his 1st target like, he were after quite a few players before him.

Surely no chance he goes there, mainly because he's not at that level anymore, but also because of what he said about Vini Jr, he apparently burned a lot of bridges at Real Madrid after that.

They've been poor so far like, but I just mean as players really. I think you can rate them all this season and get a distorted impression of how good they are as players/can be.

You think rating them in this form is an accurate assessment of who they are overall as players? Ramsey's been fine and was getting better and better until we collectively fell off a cliff.

Rating any of our players at the moment seems sort of pointless like. They all seem to be lacking in confidence and are out of form. Osula's probably the only player who seems to be playing at a level we would expect or higher of them. For me it was Barnes and Tino today who were really, really bad. Tbf to them neither of them hid, bit by god they (and everyone else) could do with something to kick them up the arse. Surprised they haven't had one of their team bonding breaks this season tbh, it seemed like they worked previously.

Aye, I'm a proper idiot me, you got me, devastating. I dunno what you're attempting like, seems like you're a bit insecure about whether people see you as clever or not. Whatever it is it's embarrassing.

Sometimes you just have to sit back and say hei, I wish I were dead.

You're all idiots man, you didn't listen when I was saying all this in December 2021, January 2023, October 2024 and all of this season. And look at us now!

Makes sense to big yourself up if no one else is ever going to do it.